Backbench Business Committee
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Let me once again put on record my tribute to the work already done by the Backbench Business Committee in the first Session, as the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) said. We had some very good debates, including debates on Hillsborough and on wild animals in circuses, the resolution of which issue we still await.
Labour Members are happy with the process undertaken to elect the new Backbench Business Committee. The parliamentary Labour party has run its election to the Committee and is more than happy—in fact, proud—to put forward my hon. Friends the Members for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) and for Gateshead (Ian Mearns). I am sure that they will be fine members of this new institution as they join its wonderful Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who has shown real leadership in taking the Committee’s work forward.
As for the House business committee, Labour Members await with interest developments on that front. In particular, we will be looking to see whether we get U-turn No. 35, or perhaps No. 36, when we do not see the committee materialise over the next year or two. That would be one of the biggest U-turns of all, as this commitment goes straight back to the coalition agreement.
Angela Smith
Perhaps we will see tomorrow one of the reasons why.
It remains for me to congratulate all those who have been elected. I hope that this Committee will be as successful as the previous one in the forthcoming Session.
Whitsun Recess
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Graham Jones
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments, but, as he knows, the northern hub covers Manchester and Liverpool, whereas I am talking about east Lancashire. He will be aware that his colleague, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), is pleading for an upgrade of the east Lancashire line between Rawtenstall and Bury. Members on his own side of the House are pleading for infrastructure projects.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
For the record, the northern hub has not been given the go-ahead. The Chancellor gave the impression in the Budget that we would get the electrification of the Hope Valley line from Sheffield to Manchester, but that turns out not to be the case.
Graham Jones
That point was relevant to the intervention from the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart). Not only do Labour Members disagree with his comments, so are organisations such as the Skipton-East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership, which wants to extend the line from Colne into Yorkshire. Infrastructure investment is needed because communities and constituencies such as Pendle are isolated. Such projects require substantial amounts of money.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
We have had an excellent debate. First, I want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), who gave a very eloquent and compassionate account of the sudden and unexpected death from epilepsy of a 10-year-old child in her constituency. Her account of that tragic event moved us all.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) is known for her expertise on international issues. She spoke about the women’s rights records of many countries in the middle east. In what was an excellent speech, she also outlined her continuing concern about the torture, imprisonment and suppression in Bahrain of those demanding democratic rights, and she talked about similar situations in other middle-east countries.
There is a great deal of respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) for the work he does on business and industry. He talked about airport development in the south-east, and the proposal for an airport in the Thames estuary. His constituency borders Heathrow, so this issue is of great importance to him and his constituents. He gave an excellent speech, in which he made it clear that the ongoing debate about a Thames estuary airport is a distraction from the real issues concerning aviation and its potential contribution to economic growth in the UK.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) has long campaigned on issues relating to freight and the railway system. He talked about the plan for a freight route from the south to the north of England. In his usual enthusiastic style, he pointed to the logic in securing, in the medium or long term, a modal shift in our freight capacity away from the road network and on to the railways.
My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) talked superbly about the potential impact on London of the Government’s housing benefit policy. He referred to the Mayor of London’s view that there is a real possibility that the poorest in London and housing benefit claimants will be pushed out to the suburbs, in effect achieving a separation—a ghettoisation —of the poor and the better-off in our great capital city.
My hon. Friend also talked about animal welfare. I have worked with him on animal welfare issues. In the previous Government, he served as a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister with responsibility for animal welfare, and I can testify that he was an excellent Minister. I worked with him on dog control in particular, which is an ongoing campaign. Today, however, he talked about the labelling of meat to make it clear whether the animal was stunned. Leaving aside the religious issues, he made an excellent case for the labelling of meat and for clarity in respect of animal welfare standards.
My hon. Friend also talked about the Olympics, as did a number of other Members. It is a great event, and there is mounting excitement. He mentioned the torch’s journey around the UK. The hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) rightly boasted about the Olympic torch being carried through his constituency. I will just put on the record the fact that the torch will be going through my constituency, when it will be carried in the great city of Sheffield by Lord Coe, who is a Sheffielder, and we are incredibly proud of that. The hon. Gentleman, with his usual charm, also put on the record West Ham United’s promotion and Chelsea’s victory last Saturday night. I wish to put on the record the promotion of the great club Sheffield Wednesday to the championship this season; it is well on its way back to the premiership. I am sure that I will be standing here at the end of next season celebrating the promotion of Sheffield Wednesday to the premiership.
The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) gave us a history lesson, informing us that Immingham’s name comes from a thane from the kingdom of Northumbria called Imma. I would like to inform the House that Grimsby, the neighbour of Immingham, was named after the legendary fisherman who features so strongly in the famous mediaeval poem “Havelok the Dane”. So it is now abundantly clear to the whole House that north Lincolnshire has been the centre of the universe in terms of mediaeval folklore and history, and that is something of which the hon. Gentleman is very proud.
The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) was incredibly moving in his tribute to Alan Turing. He got this afternoon’s debate off to a superb start, and I echo his sentiments about Alan Turing. Not long ago, I watched an excellent Channel 4 documentary about the life, the achievements and the tragedy of Alan Turing. It remains a stain on British justice that that man still stands convicted of crimes which, of course, now no longer exist, and we need to find a way of clearing his name and marking what he achieved for British history and for British industry and technology.
The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) was eloquent in his opposition to the caravan tax, and of course I congratulate him on putting himself so firmly on the record on the matter. I am sure that his constituents will carefully watch how he conducts himself on this issue in the House over the coming weeks and months. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), in a wide-ranging speech, talked about the importance of the aerospace and nuclear industries to British manufacturing and, in particular, to the north of England. He related that contribution to the importance of the supply chains in both those industries. He made particular mention of British Aerospace in the north-west, with its strong relationship with military manufacturing, and of the great significance of the nuclear industry to the north-west, with Sellafield in Cumbria. I can only echo his sentiments, given that both those industries are also crucial to the economic future of south Yorkshire. People will not realise that steel manufacturing is heavily involved here and is crucial to the aerospace industry. Most of the aircraft that fly over UK airspace probably have a tiny bit of my constituency’s manufacturing capability within them, because components for landing gear and for the Rolls-Royce engine are made in my constituency. So I can only echo my hon. Friend’s comments. Sheffield has a great ambition to be part of the supply chain for the nuclear industry, but its ambitions to develop that capacity were severely damaged—I make no apology for mentioning this once again—by the decision to cancel the £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, which would have helped to secure the development of that very important supply chain.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn also put on record the fact that there has been a 232% increase in unemployment in his constituency since 2010 and went on to describe the impact on his constituents of the continuing austerity programme set in place by the coalition Government: the unemployment; the increase in the number of food banks; the pressures on and cuts to Sure Start, despite the fact that the Prime Minister says repeatedly that he understands the importance of investment in the very earliest years of children’s lives; and the increasing charges and pressures on adult social care services. The price we are paying for austerity is unacceptable. What is it achieving? Nothing but a double-dip depression made in Downing street.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) nailed that issue when he pointed out that today the ONS has once again downgraded the growth figures for the first quarter to minus 0.3%. He talked about the potential impact of the double-dip recession on the steel industry in his constituency, in mine and in all constituencies across the UK where steel manufacturing is dominant. Steel is obviously at the heart of most manufacturing processes—in construction, in aerospace, you name it, steel is at the heart of our manufacturing industry. My right hon. Friend talked about the lack of demand and about the pressures of costs, particularly energy costs. We could feel the passion with which he spoke about the manufacturing process and steel, and as the product of many generations of steelworkers I must say that people probably need to have it in their blood to understand the passion and excitement that can be generated by a big basket of scrap metal being fired up and converted into molten steel. As my right hon. Friend said, it is one of the most impressive sights that anyone is ever likely to see in manufacturing.
I want to comment, too, on the northern hub. It was mentioned earlier and it relates to our position as an economy and the Government’s handling of economic and investment matters. Earlier, it was claimed that the northern hub had been given the go-ahead. As I put on the record earlier, it has not. Let me quote what the Chancellor said in his Budget statement:
“I confirm today that Network Rail will extend the northern hub”—
not complete it, not give it the complete go-ahead, but extend it—
“adding to the electrification of the trans-Pennine rail route by upgrading the Hope Valley line between Manchester and Sheffield”.—[Official Report, 21 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 797.]
Network Rail has made it absolutely clear that that does not mean that the Hope Valley route is to be electrified and it is not the green light for the northern hub. We await that in the high level output specification statement, which we hope will be made later in the summer.
Once again, the Chancellor gave the impression through his Budget speech that he was doing one thing when he was doing another. He was slipping through, creating the impression that he was doing more than he was. We had other examples in that Budget of measures that he would rather we did not know about: the granny tax, the caravan tax and the pasty tax. It was a desperate Budget built on desperate measures by a Government who do not know how to deal with the fact that they have a double-dip recession on their hands that they have created and that they do not know how to climb out of. The Government only know plan A, they do not recognise the importance of plan B and the electorate is becoming increasingly disenchanted with their economic record, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn pointed out.
I pay tribute to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). She spoke movingly about breast cancer and its impact on women’s lives. She pointed out that the previous Government’s investment has improved survival rates for women with breast cancer, with eight out of 10 women still alive after five years, but that we still have a long way to go. It is important to have earlier detection and diagnosis and the increased and consistent use of advanced radiotherapy techniques across the country if we are to have the kind of NHS that the country really needs. The point that my hon. Friend was making was that there is no sense among Opposition Members that the health reforms delivered in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which passed through the House only a few weeks ago, will help us to deliver the approach to health that we need, with prevention of disease, early diagnosis and effective early treatment when people fall ill. Nothing in the Act will help to advance those very important agendas. The best way of reducing demand for expensive health care is to prevent ill health in the first place, but that legislation will not deliver that approach to health in the UK.
Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Smith Excerpts(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Heath
Obviously I cannot pre-empt what will be announced on 9 May, but the Government remain committed to introducing the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill. I am pleased that the draft Bill has received pre-legislative scrutiny and that it has been warmly received across the House. As my hon. Friend rightly says, I have a clear constituency interest in the progress of that particular piece of legislation.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Will the Deputy Leader of the House confirm that the Committee stage of the House of Lords (Amendment) Bill will be taken on the Floor of the House? Will he also ensure that the Government will not ram the legislation through the Commons, as they did with the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, and that there will be sufficient time for debate?
Mr Heath
The House of Lords (Amendment) Bill is a constitutional Bill, and it is normal that the Committee stages of such Bills are taken on the Floor of the House. I have no reason to suppose that this Bill will be an exception. We will of course provide adequate time for debate.
Localism Act 2011
Angela Smith Excerpts(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The motion establishes the arrangements necessary for enacting the necessary scrutiny by this House of certain orders and draft orders. It is my understanding that the Liaison Committee attempted to find a simpler method for such scrutiny but could not arrive at a satisfactory way forward. It is therefore necessary to adopt the procedure used by the Regulatory Reform Committee for the scrutiny of these orders. The procedure is complicated, as Members will realise, but Members also recognise that effective scrutiny is important. On that note, will the Deputy Leader of the House confirm that the Government will be willing to review the arrangements if weaknesses in these arrangements become apparent?
We do not object to the adoption of Regulatory Reform Committee arrangements for the scrutiny of orders and draft orders arising from the provisions of the Localism Act 2011. That is not to say that we have changed our view of the Localism Act. We voted against it on Third Reading and think it wrong that the Secretary of State should have gathered so many extra powers to himself via its provisions—142 in fact. However, the Act is now passed into law and, on the scrutiny of some of the actions arising from its provisions, we have no objection to the adoption of arrangements that mirror exactly the procedures followed by the Regulatory Reform Committee.
Backbench Business Committee
Angela Smith Excerpts(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
It is appropriate that I start my comments, which I promise will be brief, by drawing attention to the success of the Backbench Business Committee so far. That needs to be put on the record. A wide range of topics has been introduced to the House via this mechanism, some of them as a result of the e-petitions process, with which we are now all familiar. Of course, one particular subject was not allowed to be debated in the Chamber, and the reasons for that are well known.
There have been 39 days of Back-Bench debate in the Chamber and 16 in Westminster Hall. The impact has been considerable and has outweighed the number of days that have been allocated. There have been challenging debates on a range of issues and there have been six votes, including two on Afghanistan, one on contaminated blood, one on the regulation of financial advisers and one on accountability to the House. All those are important topics that would not have been debated or voted on if we had not had the Backbench Business Committee. The House would therefore not have been able to express its view.
One of the two most memorable debates was last year’s debate on wild animals in circuses. The decision of the House, without a vote, was that wild animals should be banned in circuses. The view of the Opposition is that the wild animals in circuses may die of old age before they are banned if the Government have their way.
Perhaps the biggest and most profound debate was on the Hillsborough disaster, which was held in the House last autumn. I was proud to take part in that debate, and in my view, it showed the House at its finest. It was a moving debate that consolidated the growing view that the Hillsborough disaster requires open and transparent examination, especially in relation to the records that are given over to the inquiry, and that no stone should be left unturned in revealing the truth of what happened on that day. The House played an important part in confirming the view of the establishment, if one wants to call it that, on that point.
The Backbench Business Committee is clearly a useful new mechanism for strengthening the effective scrutiny of Government by the Commons. We support the motion because it follows the example set by the new arrangements for Select Committee membership, which were hard fought for. Those arrangements determine that the membership of Select Committees should be decided by elections involving all Members of the House. The new Select Committee procedure, which will apply to the Backbench Business Committee if the motion is passed, gives Back Benchers on both sides of the House the opportunity to determine their own representation on Committees. Equally importantly, it allows them to do so without interference by any other party.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
The hon. Lady says that the motion will give parties on both sides of the House the ability to select their Committee members without interference by anybody else. In fact, it will give three parties in the House the ability to select their members. It ignores the representatives of the other six parties. The Social Democratic and Labour party, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National party, the Alliance party, the Green party and the Democratic Unionist party will have no ability to select members. Does she not think that she should have thought the matter through a little more carefully, or is this just about the Labour party Whips controlling their Members, in the same way as it is about the Tory Back Benchers being controlled by their Whips?
Angela Smith
Perish the thought. I would argue, actually, that the motion gives minority party Members more right to representation on the Backbench Business Committee.
Mr Nuttall
Does the hon. Lady agree that there would be a problem if the motion were accepted, in that two elections would take place, one among Government Members and one among Opposition Members? The rules provide that two female Members have to be elected to the Committee. How would that work in practice? How would it be determined who the two female Members should be?
Angela Smith
It is a minimum of two women, and the Opposition have plenty of very good women who would put their names forward. In my view, women on the Labour Benches are equally likely to be represented on the Committee as our male colleagues, if not more so.
Angela Smith
Very briefly, but then I must make progress, because I want to give Back-Bench Members time to make their contributions.
Angela Smith
The Opposition will have a quota to provide gender balance on the Committee, because we are committed to equality when it comes to gender representation in the House. We are proud of the fact that we follow that principle.
The motion will also abolish the prohibition on members of minority parties standing for the position of Chair of the Committee, which is an important improvement. That is provided, of course, that they are not members of any governing coalition, which is an equally important improvement.
A Procedure Committee inquiry on the Backbench Business Committee is ongoing. We seek assurances that there will be an opportunity at the appropriate time for the House to take a view on any recommendations arising from that report, with adequate time provided. I believe that the Government have already conceded that point to some extent, but I should like to hear more about it when the Minister concludes the debate.
We cannot support the amendments, because they are incompatible with the Select Committee membership arrangements that are already in place.
I shall conclude now, because I wish to give Back-Bench Members adequate time to contribute.
Sittings of the House (20 and 23 March)
Angela Smith Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The motion before us gives the Government the opportunity—or the right—to table the extra day’s debate required for the Budget. In tabling the motion, the Government had a clear choice: they could have extended business to Wednesday 28 March, but instead they have chosen to extend it in the preceding week, to Friday 23 March.
The first point to make about today’s motion is that it clearly illustrates the Government’s incompetent management of the business of the House, in that it was only last October—when it was absolutely known that the Budget statement would be made on Wednesday 21 March—that the recess from Tuesday 27 March was determined. The incompetence of the Government, in being unable to arrange their business in the required time for the debate on the Budget statement, is staggering. The fact that we have to be here today, debating and putting right the Government’s incompetence and their mistake in timetabling the Budget business, is staggering. However, even given the situation that they are in, the Government have not decided to put the start of the recess back by one day, but have, in effect, chosen to go for a Friday sitting.
Given the Government’s incompetence in scheduling business, there is a further question that begs to be answered. Why are they not making the more obvious choice of extending the business to Wednesday 28 March? Is it because the Prime Minister does not like being held to account in this Chamber? Is he trying to avoid Prime Minister’s questions? The evidence is crystal clear. An analysis of recent parliamentary recess dates shows that the House of Commons has risen on a Tuesday, rather than the more usual Thursday, on 63% of occasions since the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) became Prime Minister.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
If that is really the case, how does the hon. Lady account for the fact that the present Prime Minister has spent more time at the Dispatch Box than the previous Prime Minister did?
Angela Smith
It has to be said that the previous Prime Minister faced up to his global leadership responsibilities in the face of the biggest recession in this country for 60 years, unlike the present Prime Minister, whose global leadership involves standing on the sidelines and walking away from negotiations. Our previous Prime Minister played his part and led the world in showing the way out of the previous crisis.
This Government’s unwillingness to be held to account is becoming more apparent by the day. First, they rushed through the Commons a number of highly controversial pieces of legislation in the early days of this Parliament, denying this Chamber the right to proper scrutiny of their provisions.
Angela Smith
That is not necessarily the case. What we are discussing today is the need for competent scheduling of the business of the House, rather than last-minute motions on the Floor of the House as a result of the Government getting themselves into a hole in regard to the time they have allowed for debate.
The Bills to which I have just referred are now bogged down in the Lords, with the detested Health and Social Care Bill alone requiring more than 1,000 Government amendments so far. Furthermore, we have Ministers regularly ignoring the rights of this House over important announcements about Government policy. Many Members will recall the occasions on which it has been necessary to point out to the House that a Minister has yet again briefed the media, before briefing the House, on an important matter.
Now, we have a Prime Minister who will apparently do almost anything to avoid being held to account at PMQs. The House is therefore entitled to ask why the Prime Minister is so reluctant to account to his peers for his actions. This is, after all, the man whose self-confidence led him to say, live on air, “Bring it on!” when asked in 2009 whether he was looking forward to the general election. This is the man who wanted to “Fire up the Quattro”, and who gave voters the clear impression that he was a man who meant business and knew what he was about.
Brandon Lewis
Given the hon. Lady’s comments about the Prime Minister attending Prime Minister’s questions, what does that tell us about the previous Prime Minister, who spent about half as much time at PMQs as the present one?
Angela Smith
I think the hon. Gentleman asked that question only a few minutes ago—[Hon. Members: “You didn’t answer.”] The question was answered.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am moved to suggest to my hon. Friend that one of the reasons that the previous Prime Minister felt able to leave the Wednesday Question Time to his deputy was that he trusted her.
Angela Smith
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is another reason for my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) finding it impossible, on occasion, to get to the Dispatch Box. He gave global leadership in the credit crunch, and he trusted his deputy. Whether this current Prime Minister trusts his deputy is open to question.
All the evidence suggests the opposite of what we have heard, and that our Prime Minister is a leader who cannot get his facts straight and who is increasingly running scared of being held to account on the detail of his Government’s policies. With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will illustrate this point with examples. Let us take, for instance, what the Prime Minister claimed only the other week:
“The proportion of police officers on the front line is up”.—[Official Report, 8 February 2012; Vol. 540, c. 295.]
That is a misleading claim, if ever there was one. Of course, his reference was to the proportions of front-line officers rather than their overall numbers. Thus, where perhaps 12 front-line officers were assisted in their work by six support staff, there might now be only six front-line officers and only two support staff. The proportion would be higher, but the number of front-line officers would have been cut by 50%. In the end, the Prime Minister will not be able to continue to defend the line that front-line policing is being protected when budgets are being cut by 20%. About 16,000 police officers are likely to lose their jobs, and the Prime Minister knows that he will be called to account for that at Prime Minister’s questions.
The Prime Minister has, of course, already been called to account at the Dispatch Box by the Leader of the Opposition for his Government’s disastrous Health and Social Care Bill. Only yesterday, we witnessed in this Chamber the Prime Minister thrashing around, desperately trying to trade insults and to deploy soundbites in an attempt to deflect attention from his unpopular and unwanted top-down reorganisation of the NHS.
Two weeks earlier, just before the recess, the Prime Minister claimed at Prime Minister’s Question Time that 100,000 more patients are being treated every month. It was possible to make that claim, however, only if one compared May 2010 with November 2011. If one compares May 2010 to May 2011 and November 2010 to November 2011, one finds that the figures are, in fact, static. Equally, the Prime Minister claimed that there were 4,000 extra doctors since the election. That is true, of course, but it is not something that he can take credit for. After all, it takes between five and seven years to train a doctor and the extra numbers are therefore a legacy of the previous Labour Government.
So there we have it—a Prime Minister who knows that his cavalier approach to answering the questions posed to him by this House is under pressure, who knows that his slapdash approach to Prime Minister’s questions is being increasingly exposed, thereby revealing him and his Government as incompetent and not up to the task of taking this country through the very challenging times in which it finds itself. No wonder this Government want to avoid Prime Minister’s questions wherever possible. It is the one occasion every week when the spotlight is on everything they do, and they increasingly worry that they will be found wanting. In the interests of accountability and democracy, we oppose the motion.
Mr Hollobone
I am most grateful for that suggestion.
When I flagged up the issue during business questions earlier today, the Leader of the House said that the Deputy Leader of the House would provide a powerful response to my amendments during his speech. I do not know whether the Deputy Leader of the House left his notes in the Leader of the House’s office, but his contribution certainly did not constitute a powerful response to the amendments, which I found disappointing. This could have been the occasion for the establishment in the Chamber of a new doctrine, the Heath doctrine, to celebrate Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee. The Heath doctrine could have stated that whenever a sitting in Westminster Hall is cancelled for understandable reasons, the parliamentary air time must be replaced by an alternative sitting. The Deputy Leader of the House would have been applauded by Members on both sides of the House, and I am disappointed that he did not choose to grasp that chalice.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough is right: there are all sorts of innovative ways in which the Government could overcome the difficulty of allocating the time. If we accept that, as the rules stand, it is up to the Government to decide what debates take place, the Government could say, for example, to the Speaker’s Office through the Table Office, “We must allocate this time, but will you invite applications from Back Benchers to fill the slot? We will then take your recommendation for filling the time appropriately.” That would have been the imaginative and innovative solution that I would expect from our two colleagues, and I am sorry that they did not think of it.
There is no shortage of potential debates in Westminster Hall. Only today, we heard 37 Back Benchers call for debates on a range of subjects: cosmetic surgery, north-east regional strategy, the Royal Bank of Scotland, drought and the national water grid, the Olympics, working tax credits, youth unemployment, music exports, Syria, international women’s day, elected mayors, design patents, directory inquiries, high streets, defence procurement, work experience schemes, unemployment in the north-east, business in the community, the Backbench Business Committee, arms exports to the middle east and north Africa, apprenticeships, local heating schemes, music licences in public places, bans on protest marches, the economy, education and manufacturing, employment law, Professor Ebdon, job clubs, small and medium-sized enterprises in retail, manufacturing, energy companies and their customers, and the efficiencies of police services. That is just the list for today; I am sure that in most weeks many further requests are made to the Leader and Deputy Leader of the House.
Representations to the Backbench Business Committee continue to flood in, too. There is a long list of outstanding issues for which it has not been possible to allocate any time, simply because the Government have not allocated the Committee sufficient time to be able to debate them. When the Backbench Business Committee was established, we were promised that it would get 35 days per Session. The gentleman’s agreement—to use a sexist phrase—was that that would, in effect, be 35 days per year. This Session lasts for two years, however, and although I am not a great mathematician, I believe that the Backbench Business Committee should therefore be allocated 70 days for the discussion of issues Back Benchers wish to raise, but today’s Order Paper reveals that it has been allocated only 53 and a half days, and we are about to go into March. It appears that we will fall well short of that 70 total, therefore. Some of these outstanding issues could be scheduled for debate in an extra day in Westminster Hall. That would go some way towards dealing with the large number of issues that have come before the Committee.
Amendments (a) and (b) are reasonable measures intended to preserve the power of this Chamber to hold the Government to account and to allow Back Benchers on both sides of the House to raise constituency interests and concerns. Even at this late stage, it is not too late for the Leader and Deputy Leader of the House to have what was called this morning a Pauline conversion and to say, “Yes, this is a good idea from the Members for Kettering and Wellingborough. We wish we had thought of it, but we’re going to be charitable because we know that these two fine gentlemen have the best interests of the House at heart. We will support amendment (a).” If they were to say that, no one would cheer them louder than my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and me.
Amendment (c) would allow for an extra sitting day on Wednesday 28 March. That is a separate issue from the rescheduling of Westminster Hall time. It is, in part, to do with the issue raised by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) about Prime Minister’s questions, but not for the reasons she suggested. I think the Prime Minister does extremely well at PMQs. It is an occasion when the great British public tune in to see Parliament at work. If we ask our constituents whether they watch any of the parliamentary television coverage, most of them will say that they do not, but most of those who say they do will watch PMQs. It is a regular half hour each week that people know is worth watching for information, news and, frankly, entertainment. The great British public look forward to Prime Minister’s questions and I think that, just on the basic level, it is a shame that the nation and the House is denied an opportunity for Prime Minister’s questions, regardless of who the Prime Minister is and of which party is in power, because it is a great British occasion. It is a shame that by having the Adjournment on the Tuesday, we do not get Prime Minister’s questions on the Wednesday.
On a partisan point, I take completely the opposite view to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), because I think that the Prime Minister does extremely well at PMQs. I understand her point of view—she thinks he does particularly badly—but these differences are what makes for good debate and for the sense of occasion. I suspect that the Prime Minister enjoys Prime Minister’s questions and that he will be disappointed that he is not able to come here on that Wednesday. I suspect—this will doubtless be written down and used against me at some future point—that the Prime Minister is being given bad advice. I do not know whether it is coming from the Leader of the House or the Government Chief Whip, but someone is telling him, “Look, it would be a good idea to have the Adjournment on the Tuesday, so that you don’t have to go through all the hassle of Prime Minister’s questions on the Wednesday.” That is bad advice, wrongly given, and I suspect that the Prime Minister is disappointed that he will not have the opportunity to address the nation on that day.
On a serious level, all this does mean that the nation goes without Prime Minister’s questions for a month when it need not do so. According to the Government’s timetable, the last Prime Minister’s questions before the recess will be on Budget day, Wednesday 21 March, and the next Prime Minister’s questions will take place on the first Wednesday when Parliament comes back—Wednesday 18 April. So for almost a month the nation will be deprived of Prime Minister’s questions. Will the wheels come off the country, will the nation stop working and will everything grind to a halt? No, of course that will not happen, but there is no need to have a month between Prime Minister’s questions. We are talking about the Prime Minister of our country, and it would be a good precedent—perhaps this could be the Young doctrine—if the sign-off note before entering a recess were the Prime Minister answering questions from hon. Members in this House, to set the nation off for the recess. Would that not be a wonderful parliamentary occasion?
Angela Smith
The hon. Gentleman makes a strong case about PMQs. Will he acknowledge that the Prime Minister will be absent again on the week prior to 21 March because of a visit to the United States, so we will have the pleasure of the Prime Minister’s presence and responses in PMQs in only one week out of five?
Mr Hollobone
I did not know that, and I am most grateful for the helpful intervention. No doubt the nation will be disappointed by that. I suspect that hon. Members on both sides of the House will relish the opportunity to see how the Deputy Prime Minister performs, and that may well make for a rather more entertaining Wednesday in that particular week. I am making a genuine point when I say that there is no need to have a month’s gap in between hearing from the Prime Minister, given that we could have a new Young doctrine that says that it is important for the Prime Minister to sign off on the Session before the recess starts.
Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Smith Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Heath
Because, believe it or not, it is rather a difficult thing to define, which is why the consultation paper invites responses on precisely that issue. Some people would take an all-encompassing definition, which would require every one of our constituents who comes to see us in an advice surgery to register as a lobbyist before attending. I think that that would be an over-extensive definition.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The Government’s proposals, inadequate as they are, will require primary legislation. Will the Government now commit to pre-legislative scrutiny, which might encourage Ministers to come up with more substantial proposals?
Mr Heath
Pre-legislative scrutiny requires the publication of draft clauses, and that is what we have done. The hon. Lady might have noticed that. Of course, if, as a result of consultation, a very different proposal is put before the House, that too will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, because it is important that we get this right. Again, though, I really cannot take seriously the hon. Lady and her colleagues, who were incapable of doing anything about this problem, now complaining that we are doing something, which we are.
Public Bodies
Angela Smith Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The motion lays down the process for the Select Committee scrutiny that will be required when the powers enabled by the Public Bodies Act 2011 are exercised—legislation that we opposed, as the House knows, on its Third Reading in October.
At that time, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) made it clear that we agree that the “quango state”, as he put it, should be kept under review, and that the Opposition do not oppose the removal of quangos that have served their purpose. He went on, however, to say that
“Ministers have been fair-minded”—
and it is important to put that on the record once again—
“but the truth is that this whole process has been ramshackle. Giving Ministers the power to strike down organisations without there being proper parliamentary scrutiny is the worst kind of government; that simply does not meet the high standards this House should expect.”—[Official Report, 25 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 277.]
First, and most fundamentally, therefore, the motion before us is based on deeply flawed legislation, as this Government demonstrated with the forced reversal of their decision on the chief coroner.
Secondly, the motion touches on only one aspect of the scrutiny required of draft orders, but the issues involved are wide-ranging—a point that the Chair of the Liaison Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), made in his letter to the Deputy Leader of the House in December. He went on in that letter to seek assurances on a wide range of issues. The Deputy Leader of the House initially responded to the concerns raised in December, only a day before this motion was originally scheduled for debate on the Floor of the House. One can only wonder why that business was cancelled at such short notice. Needless to say, a further letter in response to the representations of the Chair of the Liaison Committee was provided on 13 January.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed had raised in correspondence the need for an assurance that the Government would not seek to overturn a Select Committee’s recommendation for an extension of the time required to report back on a draft order. The Deputy Leader of the House stated in his initial response that it was “very unlikely” that such a request would be turned down, but made it clear that if the Government disagreed with a request for more time, they would expect the House to acquiesce. I suggest that that was a rather dismissive approach to the right of this House to ensure that adequate time is available for Select Committee scrutiny of such important proposals. In his further letter, the Deputy Leader of the House gave a “personal assurance” that he would make representations to ministerial colleagues, as appropriate, to seek their co-operation. That is not exactly a robust mechanism for guaranteeing that the time judged necessary by a Select Committee for the scrutiny of draft orders is available.
The Deputy Leader of the House also refused in his first response to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed to guarantee that the Government would accede to a Select Committee’s request for the debate on a draft order to take place on the Floor of the House, rather than in a Delegated Legislation Committee. In his further response, however, he stated that
“the recommendation of a select committee as to the appropriate forum for debate should be viewed as a representation of especial importance for the reasons you set out.”
It will be noted that, even now, there is no firm assurance on that point, only warm words that allow the Government to defy the views of any Select Committee on this point if they so wish.
The responses of the Deputy Leader of the House have deepened the conviction of Opposition Members that the Government are intent on using their powers to force through proposals to abolish quangos without adequate scrutiny by this House. In particular, the refusal to give firm assurances that debates on orders will take place on the Floor of the House when the relevant Select Committee recommends it is shocking and only goes to show that we have a Government intent on getting their own way, regardless of the democratic rights of Members of this House.
The route of this legislation through Parliament was unsatisfactory and the proposals before us only provide further evidence of how inadequate the safeguards are as against the extent of the powers that are being given to the Executive. As I said earlier, this procedure allows for the reversal of primary legislation. It effectively means that bodies such as the Agricultural Wages Board could be abolished on the back of a debate in a Delegated Legislation Committee. That would potentially mean the loss of £90 million to the rural high street. Given that the impact of these powers could be felt by thousands of people who may lose their jobs as a consequence, it is utterly unacceptable to Opposition Members that such decisions be made in this way.
We fear that the powers made available to the House to scrutinise the decisions made by the Government under the Public Bodies Act 2011 are inadequate. With the will of the House, we will seek to press the motion to a Division.
Mr Heath
With the leave of the House, I should like to thank Members for that short debate.
I shall deal with the points made in reverse order, and turn first to the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). He will be aware that the Committee discussed the Welsh aspects of these bodies an awful lot—I remember detailed discussions of the merits, or otherwise, of Pobol y Cwm and so on. I absolutely understand the locus that regionality has in some of the bodies. The suggestion is that the departmental Select Committees have that trigger—I think that he understands that—but he made a perfectly valid point: where there is a strong territorial element in the body in question, the trigger should be exercised in the knowledge of the effect it would have in an area.
I would expect the Welsh Affairs Committee to play a part in matters relating directly to Wales and to make early representations to the relevant Select Committee, encouraging it to pull the trigger for the 60-day process. Once that process was in place and the scrutiny period under way, however, I would expect the Committee to produce a short report, particularly on matters relating to Sianel Pedwar Cymru but also on other things in which it has an interest. The report would be treated as a representation under section 11(6)(a) of the Public Bodies Act, and the Minister would have to have regard to it.
I think I can assure the hon. Gentleman, therefore, that the Welsh Affairs Committee would have a direct locus in intervening to make the House aware of its concerns. Although the Public Bodies Act stipulates that there may be a delegated powers Committee, we have made it abundantly clear that if a request was made for the matter to be dealt with on the Floor of the House it would normally be acceded to. In that case, all Members with an interest would have an opportunity to participate and make their views known before the House finally reached a decision. I hope that that goes some way to assuaging his concerns and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who is an utterly reasonable chap. I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman agrees with him so often.
The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) expressed a number of concerns on behalf of her Committee, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which, again, I well understand. It so happens that her Committee has an early rush, as it were, on the provisions in the legislation, because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs plans to make early proposals, as she said, on British Waterways, the Inland Waterways Advisory Council and the Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances.
Let me say first that, yes, if the House accepts this Standing Order today, the hon. Lady’s Committee will be the relevant Committee. Therefore, she has that trigger in her hands—or the hands of her Committee—for extended scrutiny. I understand that that will involve a reasonable work load for her Committee. I sympathise with her about that, but I believe it is better for her Committee to do that work rather than somebody else, elsewhere in the House, who knows nothing about the subject. There is no limitation on what Committees can scrutinise in their role as departmental Select Committees. That extends not just to bodies that are listed in schedules, but to those where there are no changes. If there are no changes, she will not be acting under this procedure, but her Committee will still have the capacity to consider the matter.
I understand the hon. Lady’s point about the House of Lords having its arrangements in place earlier than the House of Commons. I would have liked to introduce things earlier, but it was important to have the conversation and dialogue with the Select Committees of this House, through the Liaison Committee and the Procedure Committee, to ensure that we got it right. This House has a much more complex Committee structure than the Lords—we have departmental Committees—so a slight asymmetry in the way we did that was inevitable. However, I hope that I can persuade her that what we are doing in this case is probably the best way forward.
As far as the hon. Member for Penistone and Stockbridge (Angela Smith) is concerned—
Mr Heath
Is that not what I said? I do apologise: Stocksbridge. Speaking as someone whose constituency name is almost always mispronounced, I have the greatest sympathy if the hon. Lady has the same problem.
I was disappointed by what the hon. Lady said. She seems to be taking up the concerns of the Liaison Committee, even though I have satisfied the Liaison Committee. The fact that it is content with my proposals is not good enough for her. She still thinks that the Liaison Committee ought to be more upset than it is. Well it is not: the Liaison Committee is satisfied with our proposals. She adduced the “mystery” of why the matter was not put before the House in December, but I made it perfectly plain that the reason was a problem with the motion, which was down to an administrative error. However, given that we could not propose the motion on that day, I aimed to derive what I hoped would be some benefit from the delay by saying that it gave us more time to explore and satisfy the concerns of the Liaison Committee and the Procedure Committee, and that is exactly what we did.
I have given clear indications about the procedures that we will adopt to ensure that Committees are not disadvantaged, but have the opportunity to make their cases properly. However, at the end of the day, I cannot go against the legislation. I cannot rip up legislation that this House and the other House passed so recently and say, “Right, we’ll now have a completely different procedure.” However, I can work within the legislation to maximise scrutiny by the Committees of this House and the wider House and ensure that every Member has the opportunity to have their say. I believe that that is what we have put before the House today, after consultation with the Committees, and I urge the House to support the motion.
Question put.
Business of the House
Angela Smith Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the future business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)
The business for the week commencing 5 December is as follows:
Monday 5 December—Motion relating to ministerial statements, followed by motion relating to UK extradition arrangements.
The subjects for these debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Tuesday 6 December—General debate on the economy.
Wednesday 7 December—Motion relating to the appointment of the chairman of the National Audit Office, followed by motion relating to the membership of the Speaker’s Committee on the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to European sales law. In addition, the Chairman of Ways and Means has named the London Local Authorities Bill as opposed private business for consideration.
Thursday 8 December—Opposition day [un-allotted day] [half-day]. There will be a debate on a Scottish National party-Plaid Cymru motion, subject to be announced, followed by a money resolution relating to the Local Government Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill.
The provisional business for the week commencing 12 December will include:
Monday 12 December—General debate on immigration.
Tuesday 13 December—Motion to approve the appointment of the chairman of the Statistics Board, followed by motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to financial restrictions (Iran), followed by Opposition day [un-allotted day] [half-day]. There will be a debate on a Democratic Unionist party motion, subject to be announced.
Wednesday 14 December—Opposition day [un-allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced.
Thursday 15 December—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 8 December will be a debate on the EU Council.
Angela Smith
May I start by placing on the record an apology from my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House, who is attending an engagement in her constituency today and is therefore unable to be with us? In fact, she is welcoming the Queen officially to open a new development. I suggested that she might also want to use the opportunity to ask Her Majesty to look in her diary to check when her Gracious Speech is likely to take place, so we can finally clear the matter up—unless, of course, the Leader of the House would like to tell us first this morning?
Will the Leader of the House tell us when the Government will bring to the House business of any substance? For some time now, we have seen a distinct absence of Government-sponsored business and the schedule just announced, which takes us to almost the very end of the session, is no different. Perhaps the Government are responding to the dark days of winter and the even darker days of the economic crisis they have helped to create by going into hibernation. After just 18 months in government, they have run out of ideas while their economic policy has run into the sand. At a time when millions of families are desperately worried about what the future holds, the Government are showing how desperately out of touch they are by offering no new legislation and not a single debate of any substance.
Mr Speaker, on Monday you heard a point of order from the shadow Leader of the House that raised concerns about the Government’s deliberate and selective leaking of the autumn statement to the media and you responded by expressing your grave concern about those matters. Since then, of course, we have enjoyed the rather dubious pleasure of listening to the Chancellor deliver his statement on the Floor of the House and, indeed, it was an illuminating experience, if only in the sense that it revealed the very few details of the statement that had not already been leaked to the media. How important those small details are, however. We learned, for instance, that the Government are unable to meet the deficit reduction target that they set themselves only 18 months ago and that growth forecasts have been slashed to 0.9% this year, down from the 1.7% forecast in March, and 0.7% next year, down from 2.5%, the fourth downgrade since this Government came to power. We also learned that the Government’s squeeze on living standards will be not only severe but prolonged. It will be extended to six years or longer—a situation not seen in the UK since the last war.
Despite all the spin in advance of Tuesday, the very measures that the Chancellor chose to highlight in his leaks have unravelled under close scrutiny. Borrowing is set to spiral by £158 billion, despite promises to balance the deficit by 2015. Unemployment is expected to continue to rise for the next two years and £1.3 billion a year will be snatched from children and families after cuts to the child tax credit and the freezing of the working tax credit. Meanwhile, the bankers will contribute just £300 million. After 18 months, the verdict is in—plan A has failed colossally. So may we have a debate on the Chancellor’s autumn statement? It is time for the Government to adopt Labour’s five-point plan and put jobs and growth first.
When listening to the Chancellor’s statement, the House could have been forgiven for thinking that we were back in the 1980s—back to the future. Now we have the “back to the future jobs fund”. With more than 1 million young people unemployed, the Government’s U-turn on tackling youth unemployment is welcome, but the devil is always in the detail. May we have a debate on the measures that have been announced for tackling youth unemployment and how far they will go toward repairing the damage inflicted by the Government’s decision to abolish the future jobs fund in the first place? Such a debate would provide the Government with a good opportunity to apologise for their hastiness in cancelling a successful initiative.
The Government should also apologise for their reckless approach to economic management and, more crucially, they should stop blaming everyone and everything else when things do not go according to plan A. Last week, we heard that they were not to blame for their planned reduction in the feed-in tariff for solar-generated power and the damage that threatens to inflict on the solar industry. We were also told that the reduction was not a betrayal of their promise to be the greenest Government ever. This week, we have also heard that it is not their fault that there is no guarantee that the £1 billion for carbon capture projects will be forthcoming in the near future. However, we then learned in The Independent that the autumn statement would announce a review of legislation relating to the protection of precious wildlife habitats in the planning process because they are deemed to be a potential barrier to economic growth. May we have a debate about the role of green policy in promoting economic growth, given that the Conservative party said, “Vote blue, get green”, whereas the reality is that we are not getting very much at all? It will take more than a few huskies and a vanity photographer to restore the Prime Minister’s green credentials.
Not only do the Government refuse to respect the usual courtesies of the House but they refuse to respect the promises they made to the electorate or to take responsibility for their actions when things go wrong. They are out of touch and they are hiding from the electorate and from Members of the House.
Sir George Young
May I welcome the hon. Lady to her debut at business questions? Of course we understand the absence of the shadow Leader of the House, who is in her constituency.
On the date of Prorogation and the Queen’s Speech, I repeat what I have said in previous questions—we will announce those in due course. We have a legislative programme going through both Houses, and when that programme has made good progress we will be able to announce the dates of Prorogation and the Queen’s Speech.
The hon. Lady somewhat devalued the debates between now and Christmas that I have just announced, including an Opposition day, which she thinks is of no consequence at all. There is an important debate on the economy on Tuesday and some important debates will be chosen by the Backbench Business Committee. I am sure that she did not mean to insult the subjects chosen by that Committee by implying that they are not of any importance to the House.
On the ministerial code, I look forward to the debate on Monday; the Backbench Business Committee has brought forward a motion on the subject. I repeat that we are committed to what is in the ministerial code: important announcements should be made to Parliament in the first instance.
When we set the target that the hon. Lady mentioned, we gave ourselves an extra year’s headroom, and we have now used that up, so we are still on track to meet the original target. The strategy on which we have embarked, which she criticised, has been endorsed by the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, the Bank of England and all credible commentators. It is the Labour party alone that wants to embark on a reckless series of policies that would put at risk the low interest rates that the country now enjoys.
I hope that the hon. Lady welcomes the announcement made a few days ago on the youth contract. The future jobs fund was an expensive use of resources, and many of the jobs were short-term posts in the public sector; those in them ended up back on the dole. Our Work programme is a much more targeted and efficient alternative.
On the issues that the hon. Lady raised about climate change, we have just had Department of Energy and Climate Change questions, in which there was an opportunity to press the Secretary of State on our commitment to our environmental targets, which I am sure that he reasserted.
I think that I have answered all the questions that the hon. Lady put to me. Her last point was to ask whether we would stop blaming other people for the problems that confront us. The Office for Budget Responsibility could not have been clearer about the reasons for the difficulties that confront the country. The first is issues in the eurozone, the second is the increase in commodity prices, and the third is the deep recession that we inherited from the Labour party.
Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Smith Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir George Young
For my hon. Friend, every vote is a free vote. The speech that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made referred to Public Bill Committees and suggested not total free votes but more free votes; and we have had more free votes in the House on certain issues which, in the previous Parliament, were whipped. Having said that, I hope my hon. Friend will understand that most of us got here wearing a party label, and that it is wholly legitimate for the party to expect some loyalty to the manifesto on which the Member stood.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Since gaining the keys to No. 10, the Prime Minister has alienated at least 81 of his colleagues over the vote for the EU referendum and is yet to deliver free votes on other issues. Is it not the case that here we have a Government led by a cavalier Prime Minister, who is abandoning his cheap promises more quickly than he is distancing himself from his unhappy Tory Back Benchers?
Sir George Young
The hon. Lady would be speaking from a position of strength had her party not divided on precisely the same issue as the Government. It is an issue on which all parties were divided last week, and my right hon. Friend has not alienated 81 Back Benchers.